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Nicholas Hytner announces plans for 2006 and beyond at the National Theatre

Wednesday, 15 February, 2006

Nicholas Hytner announces plans for 2006 and beyond at the National Theatre

Nicholas Hytner has announced plans for 2006 and beyond at the National Theatre.

Public phone/online booking for the April – June season opens on 8 March 2006.

MARKET BOY
a new play by David Eldridge
Olivier Theatre
Previews from 26 May, opening night 6 June 2006
Directed by Rufus Norris, set designs by Katrina Lindsay, costumes by Harriet Barsby, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, choreography by Stephen Hoggett and Scott Graham of Frantic Assembly, and sound by Paul Arditti.
The cast includes Jonathan Cullen, Callum Dixon, John Marquez, Paul Moriarty, Claire Rushbrook, Freddy White and Danny Worters.
Romford Market 1985, where a boy has everything to learn: the art of selling stilettos, learning a good wind-up, discovering sex, alcohol and drugs, the temptations of cash and how to stay sharp in the savage world of Essex traders. Market Boy is a spectacular yarn about the time Mrs Thatcher said we should embrace the marketplace; a story about the loss of innocence.

THE VOYSEY INHERITANCE
by Harley Granville Barker
Lyttelton Theatre
Previews from 18 April, opening night 25 April 2006
Directed by Peter Gill and designed by Alison Chitty. Lighting will be by Hartley T A Kemp and music by Terry Davies
The cast includes Lucy Briers, Nancy Carroll, Julian Glover, Martin Hutson, John Normington, Dominic West, Andrew Woodall.
Edward’s highly principled world upturns when his father reveals that he has been illegally speculating with clients’ money. To make matters worse, he soon discovers his large, scandal-fearing family would perpetuate the crime rather than risk public dishonour. And it’s to Edward they look.

THE OVERWHELMING
a new play by JT Rogers
Cottesloe Theatre
Previews from 9 May, opening night 17 May 2006
Directed by Max Stafford-Clark, presented by the National Theatre in association with Out of Joint. Designed by Tim Shortall, with lighting by Johanna Town and sound by Gareth Fry.
Seizing the opportunity to research a book, Jack Exley uproots his family from Illinois to Rwanda in early 1994. Alarmingly out of depth, Jack begins a fervent search for his dear and missing friend while his wife and teenage son find trouble of their own. As Jack involves himself in the local politics, he discovers a pattern of brutality and beliefs that jeopardizes the lives of everyone around him.

The third play in the Olivier’s Travelex £10 Season, opening in early July, will be Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo, in a version by David Hare, directed by Howard Davies; Starring Simon Russell Beale as Galileo. He will also appear with fellow NT Associate Alex Jennings in the final production of the season, Ben Jonson’s Jacobean comedy The Alchemist, directed by Nicholas Hytner and opening in September.

Katie Mitchell will direct Chekhov’s The Seagull, in a new version by Martin Crimp, with Juliet Stevenson as Madame Arkadina and Ben Whishaw as Konstantin, opening in June.

In November, again in the Lyttelton, Katie Mitchell will direct Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life (originally seen at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs in 1997).

October sees the UK premiere in the Lyttelton of the musical Caroline, or Change, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and music by Jeanine Tesori. It will be directed by George C Wolfe, who staged the 1993/4 Public Theater and Broadway production.

Conor MacPherson will make his National Theatre debut, directing his own new play The Seafarer in the Cottesloe and also on tour.

Melly Still’s sell-out production of Coram Boy, adapted by Helen Edmundson from Jamila Gavin’s novel, will return to the Olivier next winter, running from 29 November and currently booking until 20 January 2007. (Booking already open for this)

Further ahead, Marianne Elliott will direct Nick Stafford’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel War Horse, in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company. The project, which follows the adventures of a horse on the World War One battlefields, has been developed by Tom Morris.

There will be a new piece of music theatre (as yet unnamed), with music and lyrics by Damon Albarn and book by Roy Williams; set in Ladbroke Grove, it will explore the great diversity of London life and the music that has emerged from it over four decades.

NEW PLATFORMS...

Dominic Dromgoole: Will and Me
4 April, Cottesloe
The new Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe explores how Shakespeare can enter our lives with such force and teach us so much about living.

Pam Gems
7 April, Cottesloe
Pam Gems, the celebrated author of Dusa Fish Stas and Vi, Queen Christina, Piaf, Stanley and the new play Mrs Pat, talks to Dimple Godiwala, the author of Queer Mythologies, a major new analysis of her work.

Richard E Grant: Wah-Wah
24 April, Olivier
Richard E Grant talks about Wah-Wah, the diaries of his debut as writer and director of his autobiographical movie of the same name.

The Coming of Godot with Peter Hall
27 April, Olivier
In the year of Samuel Beckett’s centenary, Peter Hall recalls the original London production of Beckett’s groundbreaking masterpiece, Waiting for Godot, with Jonathan Croall, author of The Coming of Godot, celebrating the play’s 50-year theatrical journey.

Peter Shaffer and Trevor Nunn on The Royal Hunt of the Sun
28 April, Olivier
The distinguished playwright Peter Shaffer discusses his seminal work with Trevor Nunn, the director of the National’s current production.

Alain de Botton: The Architecture of Happiness
2 May, Olivier
Alain de Botton comes to Lasdun’s brutalist masterpiece to talk about his latest subject: the power of architecture and interior design to influence how we feel. Followed by booksigning.

Simon Armitage: Homer’s Odyssey
4 May, Olivier
Simon Armitage introduces a reading from his re-telling of The Odyssey which recasts Homer's epic as a series of dramatic dialogues. Followed by booksigning.

Christopher Logue Homer: Cold Calls
5 May, Olivier
A special reading to celebrate Christopher Logue’s recent Whitbread Poetry Prize for the fifth and penultimate instalment of his re-telling of The Iliad. Cold Calls picks up the narrative nine years after the thousand Greek ships were launched to repossess Helen, the world's most beautiful woman, from the Trojans. Signed copies will be available.

The Granville Barker Inheritance
9 May, Lyttelton
Joel Kaplan and Sheila Stowell talk about the life and work of actor, producer, director, dramatist, Shakespeare scholar and campaigner, Harley Granville Barker.

Anna Massey: Telling Some Tales
30 May, Cottesloe
After a turbulent childhood, Anna Massey’s stage debut in The Reluctant Debutante led to the notorious film Peeping Tom, and on to television success in The Pallisers and Hotel du Lac. Her distinguished stage career includes encounters with Olivier, Redgrave, Richardson, Gielgud and Coward. Followed by booksigning